VIII

General Statistics of German Agriculture for 1882
and 1895. The Question of the Medium Farms

Havingexamined the detailed statistics of peasant farming, which are
particularly important for us, because peasant farming is the centre of gravity
of the modern agrarian question, let us now pass to the general statistics of
German agriculture and verify the conclusions drawn from them by the
“Critics”. Below, in brief, are the principal returns of the
censuses of 1882 and of 1895:

Groups of farms

No. of farms (thousands)

Cultivated area (1,000 hectares)

Relative numbers

Absolute increase or decrease

Farms

Area

1882

1895

1882

1895

1882

1895

1882

1895

Farms

Area

Under 2 hectares ...

3,062

3,236

1,826

1,808

58.0

58.2

5.7

5.6

+174

—18

2-5 hectares

981

1,016

3,190

3,286

18.6

18.3

10.0

10.1

+35

+96

5-20 "

927

999

9,158

9,722

17.6

18.0

28.7

29.9

+72

+564

20-100 "

281

282

9,908

9,870

5.3

5.1

31.1

30.3

+1

—38

100 and over hectares...

25

25

7,787

7,832

0.5

0.4

24.5

24.1

±0

+45

Totals

5,276

5,558

31,869

32,518

100

100

100

100

+282

+649

Threecircumstances must be examined its connection with this picture of
change interpreted differently by Marxists and by the
“Critics”: the increase in the number of the smallest farms;
the increase in latifundia, i.e., farms of one thousand hectares and over,
in our table placed in the row of over one hundred hectares; and, lastly,
the increase in the number of middle-peasant farms (5-20 hectares), which
is the most striking fact, and the one giving rise to the most heated
controversy.

Theincrease in the number of the smallest farms indicates an enormous
increase in poverty and proletarisation; for the overwhelming majority of
the owners of less than two hectares cannot obtain a livelihood from
agriculture alone but must seek auxiliary employment, i.e., work for
wages. Of course, there are exceptions: the cultivation of special crops,
viticulture, market gardening, industrial crop cultivation, suburban
farming generally, etc., render possible the existence of independent (at
times even not small) farmers even on one and a half hectares. But out of
a total of three million farms, these exceptions are quite
insignificant. The fact that the mass of these small “farmers”
(representing three-fifths of the total number) are
wage-labourers is strikingly proved by the German statistics
concerning the principal occupations of the farmers in the various
categories. The following is a brief summary of those statistics:

Groups of farmers

Farmers according to principal occupation (per
cent)

Per cent of inde- pendent
farmers with auxiliary
occupations

Independent

Non-in- depend- ent labour

Other occupa- tions

Total

Agri- culture

Trade, etc.

Under 2 hectares

17.4

22.5

50.3

9.8

100

26.1

2-5 "

72.2

16.3

8.6

2.9

100

25.5

5-20 "

90.8

7.0

1.1

1.1

100

15.5

20-100 "

96.2

2.5

0.2

1.1

100

8.8

100 and over "

93.9

1.5

0.4

4.2

100

23.5

Average

45.0

17.5

31.1

6.4

100

20.1

Wesee, thus, that out of the total number of German farmers only 45%,
i.e., fewer than half, are independent with farming as their
main occupation. And even of these independent farmers
one-fifth (20.1 %) have auxiliary occupations. The principal
occupation of 17.5% of the farmers is trading, industry, market gardening,
and so forth (in these occupations they are “independent”,
i.e., occupy the position of masters and not of hired workers). Almost
one-third (31.1%) are hired workers (“not independent”,
employed in various branches of agriculture and industry). The principal
occupation of 6.4% of the farmers is office employment (in military
service, civil service, etc.), the liberal professions, etc. Of the
farmers with farms under two hectares, one half are hired
workers; the “independent” farmers among these 3,200,000
“owners” represent a small minority, only 17.4% of the
total. Of this number, 17%, one-fourth (26.1 %), are engaged in
auxiliary occupations, i.e., are hired workers, not in their
principal occupations (like the above-mentioned 50.3%),
but in their side-line occupations. Even among the farmers owning
from 2-5 hectares, only a little more than half (546,000 out of 1,016,000)
are independent farmers without auxiliary occupations.

Wesee from this how amazingly untrue is the picture presented by
Mr. Bulgakov when, asserting (erroneously, as we have shown) that the
total number of persons actually engaged in agriculture has grown, he
explains this by the “increase in the number. of independent
farms—as we already know, mainly middle-peasant farms, at the
expense of the big farms” (II, 133). The fact that the number of
middle-peasant farms has expanded most in proportion to the total number
of farms (from 17.6% to 18%, i.e., a rise of 0.400) does not in the least
prove that the increase in the agricultural population is due principally
to the growth in the number of middle peasant farms. On the question as to
which category has contributed most to the general increase in the number
of farms, we have direct data that leave no room for two opinions: the
total number of farms has risen by 282,000, of which the number of farms
under two hectares increased by 174,000. Consequently, the larger
agricultural population (if and insofar as it is larger at all) is to be
explained precisely by the increase in the number of non-independent farms
(the bulk of the farmers with farms under two hectares not being
independent). The rise is greatest in the small allotment farms, which
indicates growing proletarisation. Even the increase (by 35,000)
in the number of farms of 2-5 hectares cannot be wholly attributed to the
expanded number of independent farms, for of those farmers only
546,000 out of the total of 1,016,000 are in dependent, drawing no
subsidiary earnings.

Comingnow to the large farms, we must note, first of all, the following
characteristic fact (of utmost importance for
the refutation of all apologists): the combination of agriculture with
other occupations has diverse and opposite significance for the various
categories of farmers. Among the small farmers it signifies
proletarisation and curtailed independence; for in this category
agriculture is combined with occupations like those of hired labourers,
small handicraftsmen, small traders, and so forth. Among the big farmers,
it signifies either a rise in the political significance of landed
proprietorship through the medium of government service, military service,
etc., or the combination of agriculture with forestry and agricultural
industries. As we know, the latter phenomenon is one of the most
characteristic symptoms of capitalist advance in
agriculture. That is why the percentage of farmers who regard
“independent” farming as their principal occupation (who are
engaged in farming as masters and not as labourers) sharply increases with
the increase in the size of the farms (17-72-90-96%), but drops to 93% in
the category of farms of 100 hectares and over. In this group 4.2% of the
farmers regard office employment (under the heading of “other
occupations”) as their principal occupation; 0.4% of the farmers regard
“non-independent” work as their principal occupations (what is
here discussed is not hired labourers but managers, inspectors, etc.,
cf. Statistik des deutschen Reichs, B. 112, S.
49 *). Similarly, we see that the percentage of independent farmers who
engage in auxiliary occupations sharply diminishes with the increase in
the size of the farms (26-25-15-9%), but greatly increases among the
farmers possessing 100 hectares and over (23%).

Inregard to the number of large farms (100 hectares and over) and the area of
land they occupy, the statistics given above indicate a diminution in
their share in the total number of farms and the total area. The question
arises:
Does this imply that large-scale farming is being crowded out by small and
middle-peasant farming, as Mr. Bulgakov hastens to assume? We think not;
and by his angry thrusts at Kautsky on this point Mr. Bulgakov merely
exposes his inability to refute Kautsky’s opinion on the subject. In the
first place, the diminution in the proportion of the large farms is
extremely small (from 0.47% to 0.45%, i.e., two-hundredths of one per cent
of the total number of farms,
and from 24.43% to 24.088%, i.e., 35-hundredths of one per cent of the
total area). It is a generally known fact that with the intensification of
farming it is sometimes necessary to make a slight
reduction in the area of the farm, and that the big farmers lease small
lots of land remote from the centre of the estate in order to secure
labourers. We have shown above that the author of the detailed description
of the large- and small-scale farms in East Prussia openly admits the
auxiliary role played by small in relation to big landownership, and that
he strongly advises the settlement of labourers. Secondly, there can be no
talk of the elimination of large-scale by small-scale farming, for the
reason that data on the size of farms are not yet adequate for
judging the scale of production. The fact that in this respect
large- scale farming has made considerable progress is irrefutably proved
by statistics on the use of machinery (see above), and on agricultural
industries (to be examined in greater detail below, since Mr. Bulgakov
gives an astonishingly incorrect interpretation of the German statistics
on this subject). Thirdly, in the group of farms of 100 hectares and over
a prominent place is occupied by latifundia, i.e., farms of 1,000
hectares and over. The number of these farms
has increased proportionately more than the number of middle-peasant
farms, namely, from 515 to 572, or by 11 %, whereas the number of
middle-peasant farms has increased from 926,000 to 998,000, or by
7.8%. The area of latifundia has increased from 708,000 hectares
to 802,000 hectares, or by 94,000 hectares. In 1882 latifundia occupied
2.22% of the total land under cultivation; by 1895 they occupied 2.46%. On
this point Mr. Bulgakov, in his work, supplements the groundless
objections to Kautsky he made in Nachalo with the following even
more groundless generalisation: “An index of the decline of
large-scale farming,” he writes, “is ... the increase of latifundia,
although the progress of agriculture and the growth of intensive farming
should be accompanied by the splitting-up of farms” (II,
126). Mr. Bulgakov unconcernedly goes on to talk about the
“latifundia [!] degeneration” of large-scale farming (II,
190, 363). With what remarkable logic our “scholar” reasons:
since the diminution in the size of farms at times, with the
intensification of farming, implies an increase in production,
therefore an increase in the number and in the area of latifundia
should, in general, signify a decline! But since logic is so bad,
why not turn for help to statistics? The source from which Mr. Bulgakov
draws his information contains a mass of data on latifundia farming. We
present here some of the figures: in 1895, 572 of the largest agricultural
enterprises occupied an area of 1,159,674 hectares, of which 802,000
hectares were given over to agriculture and 298,000 were covered by
forests (a part of these latifundia proprietors were primarily timber
merchants and not farmers). Livestock of all kinds is kept by 97.9% of
these farmers, and draught animals by 97.7%. Machines are used by 555 in
this group,
and, as we have seen, it is in this group that the
maximum number of cases of the use of machines of various types
occurs; steam ploughs are used by 81 farms, or 14% of the total number of
latifundia farms; livestock is kept as follows: 148,678 head of cattle,
55,591 horses, 703,813 sheep, and 53,543 pigs. Sixteen of these farms are
combined with sugar refineries, 228 with distilleries, 6 with breweries,
16 with starch factories, and 64 with flour-mills. Intensification may be
judged from the fact that 211 of these farms cultivate sugar-beet (26,000
hectares are devoted to this crop) and 302, potatoes for industrial
purposes; 21 (with 1,822 cows, or 87 cows per farm) sell milk to the
cities, and
204 belong to dairy co-operative societies (18,273 cows, or 89 per
farm). A very strange “latifundia degeneration” indeed!

Wenow pass to the middle-peasant farms (5-20 hectares). The proportion
they represent of the total number of farms has increased from 17.6% to
18.0% (+0.4%), and of the total area, from 28.7% to 29.9% (+1.2%). Quite
naturally, every “annihilator of Marxism” regards these
figures as his trump card. Mr. Bulgakov draws from them the conclusion
that “large-scale farming is being crowded out by small-scale
farming”, that there is a “tendency towards
decentralisation”, and so on and so forth. We have pointed out
above that precisely with respect to the “peasantry”
unclassified statistics are particularly unsuitable and can more than ever
lead to error; it is precisely in this sphere that the processes of the
formation of small enterprises and the progress” of the peasant
bourgeoisie are most likely to
conceal the proletarisation and impoverishment of the majority. In German
agriculture as a whole we see an undoubted development of large-scale
capitalist farming (the growth of latifundia, the increase in the use of
machinery, and the development of agricultural industries), on the one
hand; on the other, there is a still more undoubted growth of
proletarisation and impoverishment (flight to the cities, expanded
parcellisation of the land, growth in the number of small allotment
holdings, increase in auxiliary hired labour, decline in the food
consumption of the small peasants, etc.). Hence, it would be clearly
improbable and impossible that these processes should not be current among
the “peasantry”. Moreover, the detailed statistics definitely
indicate these processes and confirm the opinion that data on the size of
farms alone are totally inadequate in this case. Hence, Kautsky rightly
pointed out, on the basis of the general state of the capitalist
development of German agriculture, the incorrectness of drawing from those
statistics the conclusion that small-scale production was gaining over
large-scale production.

Wehave, however, direct data abundantly proving that the increase in the number
of “middle-peasant farms” indicates an increase in poverty
and not in wealth and prosperity. We refer to the very data on draught animals
which Mr. Bulgakov utilised so clumsily both in Nachalo and in his
book. “If this required further proof,” wrote Mr. Bulgakov with reference
to his assertion that medium farming was progressing and large-scale farming
declining, “then to the indices of the amount of labour-power we could
add the indices of the number of draught. animals. Here is an eloquent
table.”[1]

Number of farms
using animals for
field work

Difference

1882

1895

Under 2 hectares. . . .

325,005

306,340

-18,665

2 to 5 " . .

733,967

725,584

-8,383

5 to 20 " . . .

894,696

925,103

+30,407

20 to 100 " . . .

279,284

275,220

-4,064

100 and over " . . .

24,845

24,485

-360

Totals. . .

2,257,797

2,256,732

-1,065

“Thenumber of farms with draught animals declined among the large as
well as the small farms, and increased only among the medium farms”
(Nachalo, No. 1, p. 20).

Mr.Bulgakov could be pardoned for having, in a hurriedly written magazine
article, erred in arriving at a conclusion diametrically opposed
to the one the statistics on draught animals logically lead to. But our
“strict scientist” repeated this error in his
“investigation” (Vol. II, p. 127, where, moreover, he used the
figures +30,407 and —360 as applying to the number of animals,
whereas they apply to the number of farms using draught animals. But that,
of course, is a minor point).

Weask our “strict scientist”, who talks so boldly of the
“decline of large-scale farming” (II, 127): What is the
significance of the increase of 30,000 in the number of middle-. peasant
farms with draught animals when the total number of
middle-peasant farms increased by 72,000 (II, 124)? Is it not clear from
this that the percentage of middle-peasant farms with draught
animals is declining? This being the case, should not
Mr. Bulgakov have ascertained what percentage of farms in the
various categories kept draught animals in 1882 and in 1895, the more so,
since the data are given on the very page, and in the very table from
which he took his absolute figures (Statistik des deutschen
Reichs, B. 112, S. 31*)?

Thedata are here given:

Percentage of farms
using draught
animals

Difference

1882

1895

Under 2

hectares

. . . . . . .

10.61

9.46

-1.15

2-5

"

. . . . . . .

74.79

71.39

-3.40

5-20

"

. . . . . . .

96.56

92.62

-3.94

20-100

"

. . . . . . .

99.21

97.68

-1.53

100 and over

"

. . . . . . .

99.42

97.70

-1.72

Average

. . . . . . .

42.79

40.60

-2.19

Thus,the farms with draught animals diminished on the average by
over 2 per cent; but the reduction was above the average among
the small- and middle-peasant farms, and below the average among
the large
farms.[2]
Moreover, it
must not be forgotten that “it is precisely on the large farms that
animal power is frequently displaced by mechanical power in the form of
machines of various kinds, including steam-driven machines (steam ploughs,
etc.)” (Statistik des deutschen Reichs, B. 112,
S. 32*). Therefore, if in the group of large farms (of 100 hectares
and over) the number with draught animals diminished by 360, and if at the
same time the number with steam ploughs increased by 615 (710 in
1882 and 1,325 in 1895), it is clear that, taken as a whole, large-scale
farming has not lost, but has benefited thereby. Consequently, we come to
the conclusion that the only group of German farmers who have undoubtedly
improved their conditions of farming (with respect to the use of
animals for field work, or the substitution of steam power for animals)
are the big farmers, with farms of 100 hectares and over. In all
the remaining groups the conditions of farming have deteriorated; and
they have deteriorated most in the group of middle-peasant farms,
in which the percentage of farms using draught animals has diminished
most. The difference in the percentage of large farms (of 100
hectares and over) and medium farms (of 5-20 hectares) with draught
animals was formerly less than 3% (99.42 and 96.56); the difference is now
more than 5% (97.70 and 92.62).

Thisconclusion is still more strongly confirmed by the data on the types of
draught animals used. The smaller the farm, the weaker the types: a relatively
smaller number of oxen and horses and a larger number of cows, which
are much weaker, are used for field work. The following data show the situation
in this respect for the years 1882 and
1895:

Forone hundred farms using draught animals the data are:

Cows only

Cows, along with horses or oxen

1882

1895

1882

1895

Under 2

hectares

. . . . .

83.74

82.10

-1.64

85.21

83.95

-1.26

2-5

hectares

. . . . .

68.29

69.42

+1.13

72.95

74.93

+1.98

5-20

hectares

. . . . .

18.49

20.30

+1.81

29.71

34.75

+5.04

20-100

hectares

. . . . .

0.25

0.28

+0.03

3.42

6.02

+2.60

100 and over

hectares

. . . . .

0.00

0.03

+0.03

0.25

1.40

+1.15

Average

. . . .

41.61

41.82

+0.21

48.18

50.48

+2.30

Wesee a general deterioration in the kind of draught animals used (for
the reason indicated, the small allotment farms are not taken into
account), the greatest deterioration occurring in the group
of middle-peasant farms. In that group, of the total number of farms
possessing draught animals, the percentage of those compelled to use
cows as well as other animals, and of those compelled to use
cows only, increased most of all. At the present time,
more than one-third of the middle-peasant farms with draught animals have
to use cows for field work (which, of course, leads to poorer tilling and,
consequently, to a drop in the crop yield, as well as to a lower milk
yield), while more than one-fifth use only cows for field work.

Ifwe take the number of animals used for field work, we shall find in all
groups (except the small allotment farms) an increase in the number of
cows. The number of horses and oxen has changed as follows:

Number of Horses and Oxen Used for Field Work
(Thousands)

1882

1895

Difference

Under 2

hectares

. . . . .

62.9

69.4

+6.5

2-5

"

. . . . .

308.3

302.3

-6.0

5-20

"

. . . . .

1,437.4

1,430.5

-6.9

20-100

"

. . . . .

1,168.5

1,155.4

-13.1

100 and over

"

. . . . .

650.5

695.2

+44.7

Totals

. . . . .

3,627.6

3,652.8

+25.2

Withthe exception of the small allotment farms, an increase in the
number of draught animals proper is seen only among the big
farmers.

Consequently,the general conclusion to be drawn from the
changes in farming conditions with regard to animal and mechanical power
employed for field work, is as
follows: improvement only among the big farmers; deterioration
among the rest; the greatest deterioration among the
middle-peasant farms.

Thestatistics for 1895 enable us to divide the middle-peasant farm group
into two subgroups: with 5 to 10 hectares and with 10 to 20 hectares
respectively. As was to be expected, in the first subgroup (which has by
far the greater number of farms), farming conditions insofar as they
affect the use of draught animals are incomparably worse than in the
second. Of the total of 606,000 owners of 5-10 hectares, 90.5% possess
draught animals (of the 393,000 with 10-20 hectares— 95.8%), and of
this number, 46.3% use cows for field work (17.9% in the 10-20 hectare
group); the number using only cows amounts to 41.3% (4.2% in the 10-20
hectare group). It turns out that precisely the 5-10 hectare group, the
one most poorly equipped with draught animals, shows the greatest
increase from 1882 to 1895 both in the number of farms and in
area. The relevant figures follow:

Percentage of total

Farms

Total area

Cultivated area

1882

1895

1882

1895

1882

1895

5-10 hectares

10.50

10.90

+0.40

11.90

12.37

+0.47

12.26

13.02

+0.76

10-20 hectares

7.06

7.07

+0.01

16.70

16.59

-0.11

16.48

16.88

+0.40

Inthe 10-20 hectare group the increase in the number of farms is quite
insignificant. The proportion of the total area even diminished, while the
proportion of the cultivated area increased to a much lesser extent than
that of the farms in the 5-10 hectare group. Consequently, the increase in
the middle-peasant farm group is accounted for mainly (and partly even
exclusively) by the 5-10 hectare group, i.e., the very group in which
farming conditions with regard to the use of draught animals are
particularly bad.

Thus,we see that the statistics irrefutably reveal the true significance
of the notorious increase in the number of middle-peasant farms: it is not
an increase in prosperity, but an increase in poverty; not-the
progress of small farming, but its degradation. If the conditions
of farming have deteriorated most among the middle-peasant farms,
and if
these farms have been obliged to resort most extensively to the use of
cows for field work, then, on the basis of this aspect of farming alone
(one of the most important aspects of farming as a whole), it is not only
our right but our duty to draw the conclusions regarding all the other
aspects of farming. If the number of horseless farms (to use a term
familiar to the Russian reader, and one quite applicable to the present
case) has increased, if there is deterioration in the type of draught
animals used, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the general
maintenance of the animals and the treatment of the soil, as well as the
food and the living conditions of the farmers, have likewise deteriorated;
for in peasant farming, as all know, the harder the animals are worked and
the worse they are fed, the harder the peasant works and, the worse he is
fed, and vice versa. The conclusions we drew above from Klawki’s detailed
study are fully confirmed by the mass data on all the small peasant farms
in Germany.

Notes

[1]
We reproduce the table as given by Mr. Bulgakov, merely adding the
totals.
—Lenin

[2]
The smallest reduction is observed among the smallest farms, only a
relatively insignificant proportion of which keeps draught
animals. We
shall see further that it was precisely among those farms (and
only among them) that the composition of the draught animals
improved, i.e., a larger number of horses and oxen and a relatively
smaller number of cows were being kept. As the authors of the German
Inquiry (S. 32*) have rightly remarked, the farmers on the smallest
allotments keep draught animals, not only for tilling the land, but also
for “auxiliary work for wages”. Consequently, in discussing
the question of draught animals it would be erroneous to take these small
allotments into account, since they are placed under altogether
exceptional conditions.
—Lenin